Sunday, September 22, 2013

Foraging for Kousa Dogwood berries and muffin recipe

Living in a city, or suburb, does not mean there are no
opportunities for foraging; you just have to know where to look. Sometimes you
don't need to look further than your own backyard.

I recently visited Cluck, an
urban homestead supply store in Providence, with my fellow Master Gardener friend,
Kathy. We both bought Backyard Foraging by Ellen Zachos, which is a
lovely book about discovering edible plants in your neighborhood.

After perusing the pages, Kathy called to tell me she has a
Kousa Dogwood in her front yard and it’s bursting with berries.

"It’s in the
book. What do you think?"
Of course, the first thing I asked her was if she had
tasted a berry. This foraging thing is new to her, but she went out and picked a couple. They were delicious. She brought me
a couple to try and they were nothing like I expected. The flesh was orange
with a creamy texture and a taste like mangoes. The skin was rough and the
berry contained several large seeds, but the flesh was divine.

Cornus Kousa, or Japanese Dogwood, is not native to the US
but is not considered an invasive species. It is a favorite ornamental tree in
yards and parks because of its showy white bracts (not flowers).The berries appear in late summer. About the
size of cherries, the fruit starts out yellow and turns a rosy red color when
ripe. The berries have a distinctive bumpy skin. The taste can vary from tree
to tree, so it is advisable to try a few before you strip the tree of its
berries!

Photo by Kathy Schnabel

A few days later I get an email from Kathy.
"The squirrels
are eating the berries! We better act fast!"
The next day we harvested 5lbs, 12
ounces of fruit in the rain, climbing all over her yard, stepping on plants and using a hoe
to bend over the top branches enough to get the best fruit.

Once at home, I washed the berries, then started pushing them through my
food mill. I couldn’t believe how much puree I was getting! 5 lbs, 12 ounces yielded
almost six cups of pulp; almost a cup a pound.I started thinking about what I could do with my half of the bounty (I froze a good portion for later). Could I use
it as a fresh condiment on grilled chicken? Yes! As a base for a salad dressing?
Absolutely. How about as the main ingredients in muffins?

Here is my recipe for Kousa Dogwood Berry Muffins. The flavor is
more subtle than eating the puree on its own, but the texture is moist and
tender.

Hi,I put the berries whole through a food mill and it did a wonderful job of removing the pulp from the skin and the seed. I would taste a berry from the tree before you harvest and process. Apparently, not all Kousa Dogwood berries have a pleasant taste. I hope you like the pulp as much as we did!

Hi Diane, I think you can use the berry pulp any way you would use fruit puree. I really like it as a condiment with chicken. It would also work in smoothies or swirled into yogurt. If you have an ice cream maker I bet it would make a great addition to a basic vanilla ice cream recipe. Let me know if you make anything good!